Intelligence Online
Like
most proud mothers, Monika Deol, former VJ and Citytv personality, knows all
about family bragging. Today, however, she's not boasting, as expected,
about her three young children (all under the age of four), she's bragging
about her mother.
"My mother was just awarded the Order of
Manitoba," she beams over the phone from Vancouver. "She was a bit
of an activist in women's, racial and educational issues, I guess you could
say. She's done a lot. She was the director of the Boys' and Girls' Club of
Manitoba. She sat on the Manitoba Human Rights Commission."
Deol's excitement is contagious. "My whole family is
coming to visit this weekend," she continues. "And yes, Mom will
be wearing her pin. They give you two, you know, in case you lose one. Did
you know that?"
What Deol describes as a "hectic" family
weekend, which also includes a visit from her sister Minny (also an on-air
personality, on the U.S. Home and Garden Network) and Minny's family, was a
good way to keep herself busy. Tonight, after six years, Deol is
"coming back," in a sense, as the anchor of Citytv's CityPulse@11
in Vancouver, weeknights.
Deol was once as famous as can be -- in that Citytv
celebrity way, especially in Toronto. Only a handful of personalities from
the Citytv family -- like Jeanne Beker or Gord Martineau -- get to this
level of television celebrity: Not only are they "everywhere," as
the slogan goes, they've stayed put for so long.
Deol fits into this category, on air for nearly a decade
before she left. Who could ever forget her seemingly endless legs, watching
her shivering in the cold hosting Electric Circus in serviette-size outfits,
or her enviable, flawless dark skin as she read the entertainment news?
"I know, it's strange," Deol says. "I'll
still come back to Toronto for visits, and from the moment I get off the
plane, to getting my baggage, to getting in a cab, people will say, 'Hey
Monika, how are you?' Some people, I think, don't even know I left. They
think I'm still on the air. They say, 'Wow, are you still there?' Even here
in Vancouver, not a day goes by where four or five people don't stop me to
chat."
From 1987 to 1996, Deol was an "entertainment
specialist" on CityPulse at Six, host and co-producer of Citytv's
Electric Circus, star of MuchMusic's FAX and Rapid-Fax and co-host of
Citytv's Ooh La La. In fact, many would say -- and they did -- that she left
the glamorous world of television at the top of her game, especially for
someone who grew up on a dairy farm in Beausejour, Man., an hour outside
Winnipeg, and somehow "made it" in the big bad centre of the media
world -- Toronto. (Yes, she did milk the cows and feed the chickens.)
"I left when I felt ready to leave. I've never looked
back. There were some people who looked at me and said, 'How can you leave
when everything is going so well for you? What if your career ends for good?
What if you can't ever go back to it?' I admit that I sort of walked down a
diving board and jumped in the pool. But I never looked back. I felt
ready."
She left TV, and what she describes as her
"completely workaholic life," for the love of a man, after meeting
Vancouver businessman Avtar Bain -- one of the richest and most intensely
private men in Vancouver.
Ever since, she's become somewhat of an expert on mothers
and the workplace. When she talks about that much sought after balance of
career and family, with that deep, smoky voice (though she has never picked
up a cigarette), you know it's something she's given a lot of thought to,
and you can't help but think, "Yeah! Yeah, you're right! Tell 'em,
sister!'
Deol didn't miss being on air, and it was a tough decision
to get back into it.
"I loved working. I had a strong work ethic. But then
you meet the right person and you think, 'OK, I need some balance here.'
Then I stopped working, had three kids. It took me a long time to make a
decision to come back. I really had to think about it. I really value the
time I have with my children and family," she says.
Luckily, she's not working full-time. "We'll see how
it goes," she says, still sounding a little skeptical. "My kids go
to bed at 7:30 p.m. So I can go to work after that and still get up with
them. At least that's the plan. And I want to be consistent about it. I
chose the 11 o'clock news because I can still spend time with my kids. It
just means a little less sleep. But we'll deal with that. I've spent six
years in this city trying to make a life, and that life just had to do more
with my family."
She says she has never shown her children tapes of her
hosting Electric Circus. "That will be an interesting moment," she
says, laughing.
Being a mom, she says, may help her deal with working
again. "Raising a family was the hardest work I have ever done. I am a
lot more relaxed now. As a mother, you don't worry about your hair and
makeup. It doesn't really matter. But it's still nice, coming back, and not
to be caught up in those things."
Though she says reading the news is a "little like
riding a bike," she admits that "part of me is nervous but part of
me is excited -- and part of me just wants to get on with it."
And no, the kids will not be staying up to watch Mom.
"I'm counting on them being in bed, like I said, at 7:30 p.m. In
theory, this will work."
Welcome back, Monika.
- Rebecca Eckler National
Post 22 July 2002
